


Intimacy on the infinitesimal scale

by 19_empty_vacancies



Series: The Affection Verse [1]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 12:15:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16639898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/19_empty_vacancies/pseuds/19_empty_vacancies
Summary: There are little things in any relationship, regardless of its form, which speak of close intimacy and trust. It lays in the small things. Whispered secrets at 3am on haunted floors and oh look, you have a new freckle and how did you even notice that man it’s tiny. Little things which can mean the world for the singular in the know





	Intimacy on the infinitesimal scale

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to my homie, Shay for giving me some ideas. And laughing at the Tiny Meat Gang videos I was sending her on gram town during my breaks of writing this. Shay, you're truly a most bodacious babe.

There are little things in any relationship, regardless of its form, which speak of close intimacy and trust. It lays in the small things. Whispered secrets at 3am on haunted floors and oh look, you have a new freckle and how did you even notice that man it’s tiny. Little things which can mean the world for the singular in the know.

\---

Ryan blinks at the way the horrible bathroom light shines on Shane, trying to figure out if that line on his cheek is a souvenir from their night out or if it’s something else. He sees Shane’s reflection look at him with raised eyebrows in his periphery as he tries to figure out this miniscule mystery. His thoughts are moving sluggishly, he’s still mostly drunk okay? Cut him some slack, but the lightbulb moment of how he can solve this comes to him in a flash. Eventually.

Shane jumps at Ryan poking his cheek even though he’d been watching him in the mirror. He watches Ryan lean in close, can feel the damp warmth of his breath on his skin. He opens his mouth to ask if Ryan needs anything or are you just gonna poke me all night, when his friend speaks. Suddenly, loudly and directly into his ear.

“It’s a scar!”

Shane watches as his face scrunches up in confusion before he turns to face Ryan. “What’s a scar?”

Ryan looked up at Shane with a smile that screamed ‘I solved the case’, not that he knew this of course. How would Ryan know what his smiles convene to those who know him, he’s no mind reader.

“You have this tiny scar on your cheek, dude. I thought it was the weird light or like, sauce or something. But nope, totally a scar.”

Ryan watched Shane turn back to the mirror and angle his head to see what the hell he was talking about, leaning so close his nose almost touched the glass. Sure enough, Shane saw the tiniest straight line on his cheek, maybe two shades lighter than his skin. God how old was that thing? When the fuck did he get that?

Shane finds out that he said that aloud when Ryan replies with an “I dunno, maybe when you were a kid.”

Shane blinks at his reflection.

“Huh.”

\---

Little things of any kind can mean the world to one person, they may not need to share what they know, may not even want to. Infinitesimal comments like if you move your lace over when you double knot them you can undo it all by pulling on it, or hey you looked like you needed this.

\---

Ryan has a scar on the inside of his lip. He got it when he was a kid and he fell into that pile of bricks. Shane still is both shocked and in awe of Ryan, that that had happened to him and all he got were minor injuries. He’d bitten his lip on impact with the ground, er, bricks and now its scar sits just below the swell of his bottom lip.

Shane can’t remember when he learnt this, thinks it might have been mentioned when Ryan couldn’t sleep while they were on location. Maybe it was mentioned when they were watching some horror movie as a distraction from the truly atrocious acting. Either way, Shane gets the impression that the tidbit of personal information was simply blurted out with no thought.

He’d joked that if Ryan was ever killed or showed up dead, he’d ask to see the scar to confirm it was really his body. He remembered Ryan’s big eyes and shrill voice asking why he’d ever need to do that, remembered the warmth that had flooded them when he’d said that it was a way for him to know to look for him. He wasn’t just going to leave him to the mercy of people who could fake his body’s death.

Shane likes to find the scar sometimes as they kiss, likes to ghost his tongue across that bottom lip and suck as a mini celebration. It’s familiar to him, the fact that he can feel the slightest difference; his own little hidden treasure. He likes the way Ryan’s eyes always look like molten amber after he’s pulled away to watch them slowly opened them. Likes that they’re always warm and devoting.

\---

There’s a tight cluster of freckles on Shane’s side, and they distract Ryan every time he sees them in the best way. Together they form a faint, simplified version of the Orion constellation. It’s angled to the right and at the height that when Ryan holds Shane’s sides, his hand completely covers it.

There’s something about knowing about it, a small thrill, that his favourite constellation is speckled on his favourite person. When they’re in bed and Shane’s stretched out, face relaxed and content, Ryan likes to lean over and press a soft kiss to the tiny little belt in the freckle cluster. Like to rub his thumb over it when he has his arm wrapped around Shane.

Ryan has Shane mapped out in his mind, knows the other constellations dotted across the expanse of his skin. Has kissed each and every one of them.

But the Orion cluster is his favourite.

\---

Ryan found out early on his in friendship with Shane that the big guy gets serious pain in his knees. “Thems the cons of having beautiful legs, baby!” Shane had cheered before going back to rubbing the muscle around his kneecap, trying to bring some warmth to the joint.

Nowadays, Ryan has gotten used to waking up hearing an annoyed sigh in the middle of the night; often followed by the mattress shifting as Shane reaches for the painkillers he keeps by the bed for this exact reason. Sometimes Shane gets up as well to eat something with the tablets, moves in a way to stretch out the pain.

On bad nights, Ryan will wake up to a pained grunt and roll over to see Shane sitting up and have a hand rubbing his hip while his other rubs his shins. Those nights are worse because once the pain travels, it takes ages for it to recede.

“C’mon.”

Ryan crawls out of the tangled blankets and heads to his bathroom to start running a hot bath. Shane follows behind him slowly and by the time he steps in Ryan has opened the top drawer and is twisting off the lid for the Tiger Balm. Well familiar with the routine, Shane drops onto the edge of the gradually filling bath and watches Ryan slowly move to his knees as his digs out a generous amount of the red paste.

“Sorry for waking you.” Shane’s voice is croaky, and when he looks up his eyes are still mostly closed and clouded over with sleep.

“It’s fine, Shane. We’ve been over this.”

Ryan pulls his focus back to his boyfriend’s knee, rubs the balm into the front before sliding another glob onto the back of his knee which is succinctly massaged in.

“I still don’t like it when I wake you up.”

“I’d rather be woken up to you in bed than wake up and get the shit scared out of me at 2am when I walk into the bathroom to take a piss and find you sitting in the tub. In the dark. In only a shirt.”

Shane snorted at the shared memory before twisting to turn off the bath taps. “I only did that once—”

“You did it three times, dickhead, before you put a lamp in there because you think the top light is ‘too bright.’”

“It is too bright, Ryan. There’s a reason we have lamps everywhere. Low light is the best light, it’s all anyone should have at any time when at home. It’s warm and homey. If I could, there’d be nothing but lamps on. And only because you won’t let me light all the candles.”

Ryan rolled his eyes as he rubbed the balm further up the back of Shane’s thigh, gently applying pressure in hopes to aid the muscles in relaxing. “You’d forget about the candles and we’d die tragic and horrible deaths.”

“Oh dear,” Shane deadpans. “What a shame that would be. But what’s this officer? Letters? Oh, what do they say? It wasn’t an accident! Tell me more deputy—”

Ryan let out a wheeze, dropping his head against Shane’s chest. “Are you framing yourself in this scenario? Or is this an Eight Day Bride situation?” Using the position to his advantage, Ryan slid Shane’s underwear down so he could apply some of the Tiger Balm to the hip that was sore.

“Hmmm.” Shane gently rubbed Ryan’s head as he pondered, “Maybe a bit of both? Straight up defamation of both our characters and a bunch of confusing twists. The case of Shane Madej and Ryan Bergara’s fiery deaths will remain…unsolved.”

They were both giggling at the end.

Ryan pulled away from Shane’s chest and pushed himself up using the lip of the tub. “Enough clowning. Time to get in the tub, big guy.”

While Shane undressed Ryan walked back out to the bedroom and swiped the paracetamol and water bottle off Shane’s beside table before turning back to the bathroom. Maybe he’ll join the big guy for a soak, slip in behind him. Maybe he’ll be able to massage Shane’s hip into easing up on the pain.

\---

On one of the bookshelves in Shane’s apartment, there’s a box where Shane keeps tickets from all the flights for Unsolved, there’s tickets to movies and all the trips to Knott’s Berry Farm. Random admit one tickets with dates written on the back peak out as flashes of colour.  

All of them are in chronological order and weighted down by seemingly random detritus. Random small rocks, novelty keyrings from filming locations, a couple of dated corks. Three bottle tops for different beers are bent inwards and sit tucked in the corner.

Ryan peaked in the box a couple hours after seeing Shane slide his movie ticket under a keyring. Inside was like looking at their timeline. There were the rocks Ryan had found when they were out that he thought looked cool, his first beer tops of their first 3 dates. It was a time capsule of their relationship.

Ryan had smiled softly before replacing the lid of the box and returning it to the shelf. The big guy was a quiet softie.

\---

Intimacy and affection are shown in any manner of ways. It could be in gestures, grand or small, which cause warmth and love to surge throughout their venous system whenever they’re revealed. Like waking up on your birthday and finding a wrapped packaged on your kitchen counter; opening it to find a framed Giant Moth Philippines with a card, ‘it still creeps me out but he’s for your collection.’ Perhaps it’s as simple coming to your desk after your lunch break and finding a single sunflower in water. Smiling down at a hasty post-it that’s denoting that it’s your favourite and it made me think of you.

\---

Ryan finds an Instagram account one day that’s called travellingwithpaddington. In every picture Paddington is placed as if he’s doing something. Having coffee, eating tasty looking gourmet sandwiches. Posing in front of things like a tourist. All the posts have fitting captions and the combination of them makes Ryan smile every time he sees that the account has updated.

The thing is, all the pictures are from places they’ve shot Unsolved. And he’s fairly certain that’s his Paddington bear, the one he keeps on his desk at work. The one Shane likes to move around their space because he likes making it look like Paddington’s a part of the team.

It’s when they’re in London that his suspicions are confirmed that it’s definitely his bear. He’s waiting for Shane to come back from ordering at the counter and is cruising Gram Town when the post appears.

Paddington sitting at a table, arm (paw?) resting on the sugar packets holder in the center. And there in the background, slightly blurry, but there he is sitting at the table looking at his phone. When Ryan scrolls down, he sees ‘Dad still hasn’t noticed me, best hide and seek game ever.’

Damn it, Shane.

\---

Shane has a favourite spot to press kisses to.

Actually, he has a lot of favourite places. He’s been meaning to make a list. Of course, whatever list he makes will rapidly devolve from pressing kisses to Ryan’s forehead to sucking bruising marks to the inside of Ryan’s thighs. Probably really quickly if he goes in ranking order and not just a streaming list of places he thinks of.

No, Shane’s favourite spot is Ryan’s shoulders. It’s a sacred thing to him, all kisses simultaneously lingering and fleeting. He saves them for when he’s reading something over Ryan’s shoulder for the fifth time because the script has been tweaked and do you think it sounds good or should I put more research notes in? The kisses are a reassurance for Ryan that rapidly follow softly spoken praise.

The shoulder is Shane’s favourite spot to kiss because he likes seeing Ryan pull out of his head slightly, likes the way his shoulders lose some of their tension and relax.

(That being said, thigh kisses. Thigh kisses are pretty fucking up there.)

\---

It never makes it to episodes because he doesn’t need anyone to see it, but when they’re overnight on locations and his anxiety is peaking, Ryan fidgets with Shane’s hand. Hell, he does it when they’re back the motel, even at home, when his mind is constantly firing possibilities of horrible things following them or happening to them. It was a habit that was established before they got together, long before. Shane sleeps with his arm tucked under his pillow but his hand always hangs out.

It started because Ryan was trying to fall asleep, but he couldn’t get his mind to shut off. He’d sat up slightly against the headboard, tired eyes picking shapes in the shadows of their motel room. He hadn’t even been aware that he was fidgeting with Shane’s hand until he’d heard a questioning grunt of his name.

When he’d turned, it was to see Shane lifting his head from his pillow, face creased and reading sleepy concern. “You ‘kay?” he’d asked.

“Yeah, totally fine,” Ryan had replied, “why do you ask?”

Shane didn’t say anything, just tugged on his hand gently.

“Oh.” It was soft and surprised because the entire time Ryan had thought it was just his own hands, but no. That was definitely Shane’s hand cradled and dwarfing his own. He didn’t even know when he’d picked it up. “Sorry,” Ryan had whispered, placing Shane’s hand back on the mattress.

“’S ‘kay, Ry,” Shane had slumped back into his pillow and patted Ryan’s arm with the hand he’d held captive. “You’re safe here, buddy. No ghosties coming with me ‘round. Don’t like me.”

Shane had fallen back asleep literally right after saying that, hand still resting on his arm.

From then on it just became a thing. Comfortable and familiar. Nothing could happen to Ryan when he was playing with Shane’s hands.

\---

Intimacy for Ryan and Shane lies within coffees and teas made to their liking, meals bought the way over because you had a pretty rough day and needed something to make it better. It’s in snacks slipped into bags and jacket pockets to be discovered later. It’s in buying certain brands because they’re the other’s preference.

It’s pressing in close for kisses, foreheads touching and noses brushing as they savour each kiss. It’s in keeping their eyes closed as they try to catch their breath but keep getting distracted by those lips a hairs breath away. It’s in the fact that when Shane ruins the moment by sneezing directly in his face, Ryan doesn’t get mad. Grossed out, for sure. Because Jesus Christ, dude, you got so much spit on my glasses. But not mad.

Intimacy for Ryan and Shane lies buried inside Shane’s memory box. Hidden beneath multiple movie tickets and enclosed safely inside its own small box, secretly sized two years before because this relationship has been a long con. The endgame has been determined by Shane since that first date. Since that first bottle top was folded over because he’d been laughing at whatever joke Ryan had said.

 


End file.
